


Entremets

by ThrillingDetectiveTales



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Discussion of Cannibalism, Food Porn, M/M, Mentions of Murder, Minor food play, Post-Canon, murdy talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:15:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25245994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/pseuds/ThrillingDetectiveTales
Summary: Safe in Le Havre nine months after the fall, Will treats Hannibal to a picnic.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 13
Kudos: 57
Collections: Eat Drink and Make Merry 2020





	Entremets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CityStardust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CityStardust/gifts).



> Happy Eat, Drink, & Make Merry, recipient!
> 
> ~~More notes to come after creator reveals.~~
> 
> Well, here it is, y'all! My first ever foray into Hannibal fic. I originally posted it a couple of weeks ago as part of an exchange fest and have updated the post date now that creator reveals are done.
> 
> This was super fun to write and I am on the good ship Hannigram hard style, so absolutely expect more going forward. I hope y'all enjoy it! :D

**entremets:** _(noun)_ a light dish served between two courses of a formal meal

It’s not unusual for Hannibal to wake alone, and so when he reaches across the bed to find the opposite side cold, the sheets pulled back into an unkempt pile, he’s disappointed but hardly surprised. Will goes fishing, some mornings, or out for a jog when the mood strikes him, abandoning Hannibal to the pleasure of his own company in the interest of indulging the occasional craving for solitude—an increasingly rare occurrence as their old lives fade under the steady forward slog of time.

Hannibal makes a small, miffed sound in the back of his throat and strokes along the bedclothes once, wishing it were the lean expanse of Will’s back under his palm rather than cool luxury cotton. He heaves a sigh into the plush pillow and rolls over, baring his stomach to the ceiling and engaging in a full body stretch so satisfying it pulls a groan from deep in his chest. A glance at the clock on the nightstand informs him that it’s just gone half past eight.

Hannibal scrubs his hand over his face and pushes to his feet.

He’s admittedly not at his best before coffee, and he’s halfway through his morning ablutions, tucking himself back into his silk boxer-briefs, before he notices the scent on the air—hot butter and onions and garlic and something rich and sweet that he can’t quite identify. He breathes deep, eyes closing for a moment, and then washes his hands and brushes his teeth and goes to inspect the mess Will has undoubtedly made of the kitchen.

“Morning,” the man in question greets, not bothering to turn and look over his shoulder when Hannibal emerges from the bedroom, loose floorboard creaking underfoot. Will looks fifteen years younger with his hair cropped short, face bare but for the overnight stubble shading his jaw. He raises the spatula in his right hand and jabs it toward the siphon on the far corner of the counter, brass hardware agleam in the buttery morning sunlight filtering through the half-pulled curtains. “Coffee’s up.”

Hannibal hums in response and pads across the living room until he can hook his chin over Will’s shoulder and curl a proprietary arm around his waist. He presses a kiss to Will’s cheek, lips just brushing the thin pink scar carved diagonally through his pale complexion. “What are you making?”

“Lunch,” Will says, brisk and playful. Hannibal can feel the muscle under his mouth pull when Will smirks.

“Bit early for that, don’t you think?” Hannibal splays his palm flat across Will’s belly. The hem of Will’s undershirt is riding up over his boxers and Hannibal skims his thumb along the narrow strip of skin bared between them, delighting in the little chip of sound Will sucks through his teeth in response.

“Brunch, then.” Will turns his head to face Hannibal properly. Their noses brush for a moment before he slots their mouths together in a sweet, soft kiss, tasting of coffee and faint, lingering spearmint, from the toothpaste they share.

Hannibal’s breath tangles into a knot behind his sternum, just for a second. Will, he’s discovered over the course of much thoroughly enjoyable trial and experimentation, generally prefers to employ a tender touch in his intimacy. Hannibal ought to be used to it, nine months removed from their miraculous escape over a jagged Chesapeake cliffside, but it catches him off-guard most days. So much of their relationship has been violence. That brutalization followed them into the bedroom at first, during those early weeks of recovery that remain a blur of hot hands and sharp teeth, greed in every grasp and blood on every breath. Will has gentled over the intervening months and Hannibal does his best to reflect the change in kind.

He flatters himself to believe that Will has been lulled into domestic complacency by the steady presence of Hannibal at his side, the easy rhythm of their life together here in Le Havre, but he knows that the majority of the credit belongs to the outlets Will has finally learned to embrace to satisfy his more primal urges. After all, they can hardly be bothered with killing one another when they’re busy whetting that shared appetite elsewhere. It's largely been a matter of necessity, so far—would-be bounty hunters who caught up with them in Toronto, an unfortunate mugger who marked them for easy targets in Lisbon—but they're both long healed from the injuries they accrued fleeing in the bloody wake of Francis Dolarhyde and Hannibal trusts that Will has developed enough of a taste for the carnage they wreak together that he'll start to crave a more purposeful encounter sometime soon.

“I meant to have it finished before you woke up,” Will explains, turning his attention back to the pan in front of him, where a mixture of apple and chicken liver is simmering in butter and aromatics, halfway to a pâté, if the other ingredients and appliances assembled across the countertop are any indication. Hannibal can’t imagine what inspired Will to concoct so involved a dish at this early hour, but it smells good enough that he has no intention of questioning whatever wild hair is to blame. Will nudges the mix with the spatula and his brow furrows, mouth flattening into a thin, concentrated line. “Wanted to surprise you.”

“Surprise me,” Hannibal echoes, giving Will’s hip a squeeze before retreating to the coffee maker and pouring himself a generous cup.

“Mmhm,” Will agrees absently. He shifts the pan over the open flame, contents hissing and spitting as they slide from side to side and then settle again. “I thought we could make a day of it. Pack everything up and go somewhere. Lay out on a blanket together. Eat, drink.” He cuts Hannibal a look, blue eyes all dark, hooded gloss. “Take some time to really enjoy ourselves.”

Hannibal considers this, moving back into Will’s space. The kitchen, like the rest of the house, is fairly basic and a little cramped—a concession to Will’s rustic sensibilities that Hannibal can’t bring himself to regret on mornings like this—so there isn’t far to go. He stops when their shoulders brush and puts his head to one side, drawing his gaze over the planes and angles of Will’s face in lazy adoration. “Has your life been lacking in joy of late, my dear Will?”

Will snorts, half-rolling his eyes to smirk over at Hannibal from beneath one handsomely arched brow. “Hardly,” he says, shifting so his hip is pressed warm and tight against Hannibal’s for a brief, glorious second, “but what’s the harm in making a little more?”

Hannibal can’t find fault with that logic, so he puts a hand to the small of Will’s back and leans in to brush an approving kiss along Will’s temple. “What can I do to help?”

“Quit hovering and leave me to it,” Will instructs, sharp tone curbed by the affectionate curl of his mouth.

Hannibal pinches him in reprimand and Will grins, squirming away with a noise of protest.

“I’m serious,” he says, hooking the spatula over his shoulder toward the rest of the house. “I might not be bringing home a Michelin star anytime soon, but I can handle this much. Now get, before you ruin the surprise.”

“And how, precisely, do you suggest I occupy myself while you undergo your secret preparations?”

“Take a shower,” Will suggests. “Get ready. I’ll join you in a minute, I’m almost done here.”

“You still haven’t told me what I’m supposed to be preparing for.”

Will tilts his head back and sighs at the ceiling, low and aggrieved, before rolling an unimpressed gaze over to Hannibal. “Aren’t you supposed to be one of the foremost minds in the field of psychoanalysis?”

Hannibal reaches out to pinch him again but Will side steps him this time. Hannibal turns his back to the counter and settles his hips against it, crossing his feet at the ankles and ducking his head for another sip of his coffee.

“C’est un pique-nique, non?” He words it in French because Will, for all his many remarkable talents, possesses something of a tin ear where languages are concerned, and loathes conversing in the tongue of their newly adopted homeland unless absolutely necessary.

“Oui. Un pique-nique.” Will says it like an American, all harsh vowels and sticky consonants, with a little of the bayou drawl he worked so hard to forget slipping in at the edges. He nudges Hannibal’s side with his elbow. “Go, get dressed. Light but warm. There’s plenty of sunshine in the forecast, but it’s not supposed to clear sixty until this afternoon.”

“Brisk, for a picnic,” Hannibal observes, and removes himself from Will’s reach just in time to avoid the greasy flat of the spatula as it comes swishing through the air in retaliation. He grins into his coffee mug and heads back to the bedroom, leaving Will at the stove to tend his cooking.

Hannibal takes his time preparing for the day, settling back into bed to peruse a few of his preferred news sources while he finishes his coffee. The homepage of his tablet is set to _Tattlecrime,_ mostly because Hannibal likes the way Will wrinkles his nose every time the garish red catches his eye. Neither is it a bad idea to keep abreast of the rumors, and while they haven’t been front-page news for Freddie Lounds in some time, _Tattlecrime_ is still where all the tawdriest gossip finds its first foothold.

According to the website, there's a spree-killer running amok somewhere in Wilmington, Delaware who's making interesting use of farming implements in his endeavors, and the _Murder Husbands on the Move_ column is touting grainy security camera footage of a couple of unlucky lookalikes of himself and Will on a beach in Havana under the typically irreverent and needlessly alliterative headline, "Cannibal Cookout in Cuba?". Satisfied that the distant specters of their previous lives are content to leave them be for the moment, Hannibal switches over to _Paris-Normandie,_ one of the better daily papers centered on this part of France. He skims an article detailing a dock workers' strike and another on a newly proposed train line, clicking through until he finally finds mention of a local co-ed, strangled with a length of gold cording and left posed in an alley not far from the Musée d'art moderne André Malraux, her face carefully painted in the Rococo fashion with a variety of homemade cosmetics.

The article is from a few days ago but worth noting, as the culprit—dubbed Le Maquilleur by the associated press, which proves that journalists are void of creativity on every continent—has begun to incorporate ritual stabbing into his method with this fourth victim. Will predicted as much when they were discussing the matter the week prior, and ought to be pleased to learn that his skill in forecasting forensic pathology is as sharp as ever. Hannibal makes a note to mention the progression to him, though he’ll endeavor to wait until this charming, ridiculous picnic business is concluded, lest Will’s darker nature distract him from his romantic overture.

Hannibal hops into the shower when he’s finished and Will joins him after a time, crowding in close under the spray. He curls his hands over Hannibal’s hips and leans in until his forehead is resting against Hannibal’s neck, body a pillar of heat at Hannibal’s back. Hannibal shifts his weight back into his heels, leaning into Will’s waiting grip.

“Conserving water?” he asks.

Will takes a deep, slow breath that raises gooseflesh as it gusts over Hannibal’s skin and confirms in a low murmur, “Just doing my civic duty.” He tightens his fingers where they’re curved toward Hannibal’s belly and Hannibal’s cock twitches against his thigh.

Will drops a kiss just below Hannibal’s hairline and steps forward until their bodies are pressed flush together from chest to knee. Will’s not anywhere even approaching hard, but the familiar pressure alone is enough to drop a hot coal of want into the pit of Hannibal’s belly.

“I thought we had plans,” Hannibal says, canting his hips up and then down and then up again in a slow, shallow rhythm, savoring the slick slide of warm, wet skin.

“We do,” Will agrees, mouth hot against the curve of Hannibal’s shoulder. He ruts forward once, twice, a faint suggestion of what could be, if they had the time.

Hannibal sucks his teeth. “Pity.”

Will heaves a reluctant breath through his nose and steps back, giving Hannibal’s hips another little squeeze before he relinquishes his grip to reach for the soap. “It’ll keep,” he promises, and leaves Hannibal standing half-hard under the showerhead while he scrubs himself down.

An hour or so of further preparation, with the occasional detour into casual pawing, sees them dressed and ready, Will in a blue cashmere sweater and grey canvas jacket over a pair of dark wash jeans and leather work boots. He’s accessorized this ensemble with a soft cooler, slung over one shoulder like a boxy duffle bag, and a brown paper bag, tucked under the opposite arm. 

Hannibal, by contrast, has opted for a silk-blend button-down in a tasteful toasted orange, with a simple chintz pattern that reminds him vaguely of the seventies, and a pair of pleated slacks in mid-tone olive with toffee-brown wingtips and dark, patterned socks. Designer pieces all, including Will’s everyman wardrobe, because gone may be the heyday of the bespoke three-piece suit, but let it never be said that Hannibal Lecter has lost his fervor for life’s finery. He takes his leather jacket from a hook by the door and folds it over one arm, digging the keys to the Rolls-Royce out of his pocket.

“Am I to take it you’ll be driving?” He proffers the keys, smirking when Will makes a face. 

He finds the Rolls-Royce needlessly ostentatious, considering that they’re technically on the lam, and has never been shy about expressing as much, but he snatches the keys and hustles Hannibal out the door without complaint, piling his cargo into the trunk while Hannibal settles himself in the passenger seat.

They leave the radio off, content to traverse the picturesque roads of their bustling port town in companionable silence. Hannibal takes in the scenery, drumming a nonsense beat against his own knee until he tires of it and reaches his hand out to Will over the console between them, palm up. Will slots their fingers together without even looking. It’s a rush, even after more than half a year in each other’s constant company, sharing each other’s most intimate confidences, to offer himself up in a moment of whimsy and have Will accept so readily. There was a time not so distantly past when Will would have spat in his hand sooner than hold it. The giddy tattoo the small action stirs in Hannibal's pulse is a more elegant beat than anything he could have composed on his own. He closes his eyes and rides the heady rhythm while the city streams by under the power of Will’s capable hands.

Hannibal’s vague curiosity about their destination is assuaged some time later, when he recognizes the sprawling greens and lush foliage of Parc de Rouelles shortly before they’re pulling into the parking lot. Despite the lingering winter chill on the air, the weather is well-suited for a meal outdoors. The sky overhead is a vast, endless swathe of blue, unmarred by clouds, and crisp May sunlight filters down through the trees, gilding the grass and the stones and the flyaway curls sweeping up off Will’s brow. 

Will pops the trunk and gathers the cooler and the paper bag, handing Hannibal a blanket he must have stashed there the night before, then turns and takes off tromping through the grass, still glittering with mist and morning dew though it’s going on ten o’clock.

Wherever Will’s guiding them is a bit of a trek but Hannibal doesn’t mind, content to follow at a more sedate pace and enjoy the spectacle of Will’s ass at work in a pair of jeans custom tailored to his measurements. After about twenty minutes, Will stops in a sunny little copse at the pond’s edge, far enough off the walking trail that it’s unlikely any unwitting passersby will spot them at their feast, and directs Hannibal to lay the blanket out.

Hannibal does, arranging himself on top of it to best effect—sprawled back on his elbows with his legs out in front of him, crossed demurely at the ankles—while Will settles in at his shoulder and unzips the cooler. He produces an assortment of containers in various sizes, and a pair of the dark blue linen napkins that Hannibal favors, alongside a selection of their everyday silverware.

“Tell me, my dear,” Hannibal asks, reaching out to curl his fingers through one of Will’s belt loops and give it a tug, “what have you prepared for us this morning?”

“Charcuterie.” Will’s accent is as atrocious as ever, elongating the word into four syllables rather than three and displacing the emphasis in the standard American fashion. He spares Hannibal a glance, grin curling wryly at the corners like he knows what Hannibal is thinking, and then returns his attention to unloading their spoils. “I figured it was best to keep things simple and finger foods seemed easy enough. Not a lot of preparation required.” He screws the lid off a glass jar that Hannibal recognizes from their most recent trip to the farmer’s market—fig jam, concocted by a singularly talented maker of preserved fruit condiments. Will licks his thumb clean of sticky residue before leaning over to deposit the jar amid the jumble of other containers. “You’ll have to forgive the plating. I didn’t want to haul a two-foot mahogany board out here with us for the sake of aesthetics.”

“It looks wonderful.” Hannibal assures him, and that isn’t just a kindness. 

Quick though Will may be to decry its humble trappings, it’s plain to see that he put a tremendous amount of effort into this meal. To what end Hannibal isn’t yet certain, but this is far from the first time he’s acquiesced to some unspoken scheme with only the distant lodestar of Will’s silent, secret machinations to guide him through. While never precisely the wisest course of action, blind faith in Will Graham has worked out largely in Hannibal’s favor so far; excepting that stint in prison, though even that had paid off in the end.

They’re here now, anyway—safe, for a given value thereof, and together, by every definition of the term. Hannibal won’t begrudge Will the opportunity to see where else they might go, if given the means. He’ll gladly suffer a pleasant morning in Will’s company, indulging a selection of local delicacies, if that’s what it takes to coax Will into revealing whatever’s on his mind. 

Hannibal releases Will’s belt loop and gets his fingers around the fine taper of Will’s wrist instead, drawing it up until he can brush a kiss against the heel of Will’s hand, lay another at the center of his palm. “May I ask what inspired the morning’s festivities?”

Will huffs through his nose and tugs free of Hannibal’s grasp, moving only far enough to cup his hand over Hannibal’s jaw. “Maybe I just wanted to do something nice for you,” he says, pressing his thumb to the corner of Hannibal’s mouth. He sweeps it up toward Hannibal’s cheekbone and then back down again. “Is that so hard to believe?”

Hannibal purses his lips and turns his head, just managing to catch Will’s knuckles with a kiss as he pulls away. “Darling as I find the premise, this is rather outside of your usual scope.”

“So, what? I must be buttering you up for something?”

“Logic dictates that would be the likeliest motivation for a display of this magnitude, yes.”

Will accepts this with a nod. “And what is it you think I’m after, exactly?”

“I’m not sure,” Hannibal admits. “Any number of possibilities come to mind. I could make a guess, if you’d like, though I can’t guarantee any accuracy in the matter and I don’t imagine you’d enjoy it. You are, in many ways, even more violently opposed to psychoanalysis now than you were last I made a regular practice of it.”

Will considers this for a second, chewing on his lip and gazing unseeingly into Hannibal’s face. After a few seconds, his eyes clear and he reaches up to card his fingers through Hannibal’s hair. It’s grown out from the close crop mandated by the strict inmate hygiene standards of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, nearly as long as it had been when Will and Hannibal first met all those years ago.

Will pushes Hannibal’s fringe up off his forehead and clicks his tongue when it doesn’t stay put.

“What if I am?” His voice is low and so quiet it almost disappears under the bright chorus of birdsong trilling overhead. He drags his fingers from Hannibal’s temple to the crown of his skull, and Hannibal is hard pressed not to moan at the sensation. “What if I want to? Maybe it makes me feel better to flatter you a little before I ask for something. Or would you prefer I simply start making demands as the mood strikes me?”

Hannibal sighs through his nose, deep and contented, and pushes up into Will’s questing hand like a pampered housecat. “You must know I would never deny any request you made of me, my dear, couched in flattery or otherwise.” He meets Will’s gaze—eyes heavy and hooded, in the same feline fashion—and holds it, marveling at the slow, familiar flush that rises in Will’s face. “Neither would I ever dream of dissuading you from an endeavor that puts your heart at ease. I only meant to assure you that you needn’t go to such lengths on my account.”

“What lengths?” Will snorts, ruffling Hannibal’s hair one more time before he turns his pink face away to peer into the cooler’s seemingly bottomless depths. “I packed a few cold cuts and bought some bread.”

“You got up early to make pâté,” Hannibal reminds him. “And I doubt that was the sum of all you had your hand in before I roused myself from our bed.”

“You like pâté,” Will deflects, neither confirming nor denying Hannibal’s suspicions. His cheeks flare a little redder at Hannibal’s mention of their sleeping arrangements, and Hannibal smirks, gratified. “And I figured I could use the practice.”

“For?”

Will shakes his head, unwilling to further mine this vein of conversation, and directs Hannibal’s attention back toward the spread. “Eat, before everything gets warm. Or cold.” He produces a bottle of wine from the cooler—pinot gris, from the label, of a middling but acceptable vintage—and pulls a corkscrew out of the paper bag, then frowns into both the bag and the cooler in quick succession. “Shit. I left the glasses.”

“I trust in our capability to overcome such a setback.” Hannibal takes the bottle from him, leaning up onto his side a little to uncork it, and then brings the neck under his nose for that first, fresh scent. The wine is bright and citric, with faint notes of sweet honeysuckle and a barely-there undertone of ginger spice. Hannibal takes a sip straight from the bottle, cool and dry and refreshing, and hands it back over to Will. 

“I think I must’ve been about sixteen the last time I did this,” Will grins. When Hannibal arches a curious eyebrow at him, he waves a hand at their surroundings and clarifies, “Lazing around in the woods, passing a bottle of liquor back and forth.”

Hannibal hums his understanding and tilts his face up toward the sun, closing his eyes and basking in the distant warmth. He can feel the heat of Will’s knee where it brushes his arm, too, picked out in stark counterpoint to the crisp air of early spring. “Shame that it’s been so long,” he laments, opening his eyes again when Will nudges his shoulder with the butt of the bottle. “We ought not let decades go by between this time and the next.”

“I could stand to make it a habit,” Will agrees, flashing the sweet, boyish grin that Hannibal favors for its unthinking sincerity. “Provided the company is always this good.”

Hannibal huffs a laugh into the neck of the bottle and helps himself to another mouthful. He holds the bottle out when he’s finished, fingers brushing as Will takes it, and then pushes up into a proper seated position to look over the array Will has crafted. He’s done an admirable job, for someone whose self-professed interest in the culinary arts is ‘average at best.’ 

There are whole links of sopressata and finocchiona and saucisson sec cut into thick rounds, and a couple of different whole-muscle cuts sliced so thin they’re barely retaining their structural integrity where they fold in on each other—lomo de cerdo and jamón of some stripe, by Hannibal’s estimation. There’s the pâté Will made this morning, in a low, wide glass dish, next to a half-loaf each of toasted rye bread and something white and sweet with a seed-studded crust, slathered in garlic and butter and still warm in the familiar patterned wax paper from the boulangerie that Hannibal prefers when he doesn’t have time to bake for himself. 

A thick wedge of honeycomb is oozing onto a fan of sliced green apples and a selection of nuts, crackers, and cheeses—buttery Cantal vieux and crumbling goats-milk chevre; soft, creamy Brillat-Savarin and bold, raw-milk Fourme d’Ambert. Besides the jam, Will has procured a chutney of some sort involving pickled raisins and, if Hannibal’s not mistaken, cauliflower; a jar of what appear to be homemade cornichons; a selection of olives in various hues; a few handfuls of sweet white grapes; and a dark, coarse-grained mustard that Hannibal recognizes from the condiment shelf in their refrigerator.

Hannibal shakes his head and puts his hands on his knees, sighing, “I confess, I’m not sure where to begin.”

“The lomo is good,” Will offers, though he reaches for a piece of the finocchiona himself. “And Victorine recommended the jamón serrano. She said this one was pushing the standard of a white-label ibérico, for whatever that’s worth.”

“A likely claim, from a butcher aiming to oversell,” Hannibal snorts, though he and Will are frequent enough patrons of their local boucherie that he regards Victorine’s judgment in matters of quality cured meats nearly as highly as his own discerning palate. He layers the serrano, a slice of the Cantal, and a couple of green olives on an oval of seeded white toast and takes a bite.

The rich, fatty salt of the pork and the sweet, milky fullness of the Cantal sing in chorus on his tongue, with the grainy give of fresh-baked bread drumming steadily along underneath and the bright vinegar tang of olives coming in over the top to punctuate the peak of the crescendoing flavors. Hannibal makes an impolite noise of satisfaction in the back of his throat and Will grins beside him, coy and smug.

He leans into Hannibal’s side, just for a second. “Sounds like Victorine was right.”

“The serrano is better than usual,” Hannibal confirms, when he’s finished chewing, “particularly in combination with the cantalet, though calling it on par with even a lesser ibérico may still be too generous a distinction.” He dabs at his mouth and wipes crumbs from his fingers with the napkin Will provides him, then aims a smirk at Will over his shoulder. “Shall we see how it stands up against the pâté?”

Will’s gaze skitters down and away, landing somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. The flush that had only just begun to recede from his fair complexion floods back in force, rendering him pink all the way up his throat, across his faintly freckled nose, and out to the tips of his ears. Hannibal longs to lean in and trace the rosy hue with his tongue, to taste the sparkling heat of Will’s blood where it presses up under the surface of his skin, but he can tell from the tightening of Will’s spine and sudden hunch of his shoulders that such an advance would currently be unwelcome, and this is not the moment to push.

“The pâté was supposed to be more of a gesture,” Will explains, spreading a golden sliver of honeycomb out across a slice of sopressata with the blade of his pocket knife. “You don’t actually have to eat it. I’m not even sure if it’s any good.” He smears a healthy dollop of chȇvre across his meat-and-honey concoction and pops the whole thing into his mouth without ceremony.

“What better method exists by which to convey one’s appreciation of a gesture than to indulge it?” Hannibal tears a slice of rye toast into a ragged point and holds his hand out for Will’s knife, despite there being several suitable spreading options among the motley collection of silverware pieces Will packed for them.

Will hands it over without looking and grimaces as he necks a fast, hard slug off the bottle of wine. 

Hannibal smiles at him and scoops a measure of pâté onto the bread. The consistency is closer to a mousse, which Hannibal prefers over the more rustic loaf of a country style pâté, and it smells quite good, whatever Will’s misgivings. The taste, when Hannibal finally moves beyond aromatic appreciation and allows himself a bite, is precisely as it should be—earthy and rich with a faint metallic zest, brightened by the addition of the apple to the mixture. Though it could use a strong hit of coarse pepper and perhaps a dash more salt, the recipe, wherever Will found it, is a good one, if different than Hannibal’s approach might have been.

He takes his time finishing the half-slice of pâté-laden toast, savoring every moment while Will picks through the rest of the food and darts the occasional glance at Hannibal out of the corner of his eye.

“Well?” Will asks, a few minutes later, when Hannibal declines to comment on his foray into the French culinary tradition in favor of reaching for the wine bottle between them.

Hannibal takes a slow, lazy pull, enjoying the way Will’s fingers twitch against his thighs, the way his gaze keeps glancing off of Hannibal like he wants to hunt for whatever clues there are to be found in Hannibal’s demeanor but can’t quite bring himself to look. It’s a treat to see him so unmoored, a precious glimpse at a version of Will from a more innocent time. It may make Hannibal cruel to let him twist so, but very little stirs Will’s nerves nowadays, and Hannibal has always enjoyed seeing him off-balance.

“A more than passable first attempt,” Hannibal announces, when he’s had his fill of relishing the emotions that war for dominance across the battlescape of Will’s fine features—hope and fear and embarrassment and disaffection all writ together in a wild tangle, each melting away in turn under the heat of Hannibal’s approval. It’s a heady thing. Hannibal brandishes the bottle out in front of him as though delivering a toast. “You could stand to use a heavier hand with the spices, but I cannot fault you for erring on the side of caution. Even with subtle seasoning, your taste was good and your texture near perfect.”

“Wow.” Will ducks his head, tone dry and drawling, but Hannibal can see the curve of a dimple arching into the meat of his cheek, pulling at the scar the Great Red Dragon left behind there. “Pretty high praise, coming from you. I would have settled for plain old ‘edible.’”

Hannibal looks over at him, waiting patiently until Will lifts his eyes high enough to meet his gaze, and then pins him there with a smirk. “My darling Will,” he says, low and soft, “have you often known me to undersell your talents?”

“Never,” Will is quick to answer. He shakes his head, huffing a laugh out the side of his mouth, and raises his eyebrows. “To the contrary, I’m sure most objective parties would argue that you’re exceedingly liberal in your estimation of my talents.” He lets the word coil behind his teeth, sweet and serpentine.

“Most objective parties are not so intimately aware of my aversion to empty flattery as you are,” Hannibal rebuts, preparing himself another rough-edged toast point. He layers it with a generous portion of pâté and tops it all with pickled raisin and cauliflower chutney. The briny sweetness of the chutney rounds out the earthy richness of the pâté and the dark molasses of the bread. Hannibal even goes so far as to lick his thumb afterward, chasing a stray smear that he missed.

He looks to Will and says gravely, “I feel I must warn you.”

Will makes a muted sound of acknowledgment and turns, mouth full, to frown curiously at Hannibal.

“Now that you have proven yourself more than adequately capable in the kitchen, I have every intention of pressing you into service for my next dinner party.” He delivers the announcement with grim solemnity but can’t maintain the expression when Will starts laughing so hard he nearly spits his half-chewed nosh all over the blanket.

Will ducks his head behind his hand, raising his wrist primly to his mouth to preserve what little dignity he can, and chews for a moment longer. He straightens up once he’s wrangled his composure back under some semblance of control and reaches over to pat Hannibal’s knee, admonishing, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

His eyes are bright and crinkled at the corners, face flushed that lovely, wind-bitten pink. He slides his hand up from Hannibal’s knee and curls his fingers over Hannibal’s thigh, leaning his weight into the contact for a bare beat before he gives it a squeeze and pulls away.

“You should try this honey,” he says, plucking his pocket knife from where Hannibal left it lying on the blanket between them and reaching for a slice of apple. “Aubert’s bees have really outdone themselves.” He slathers the apple with honeycomb and offers it up, balanced on his thumb and forefinger for Hannibal to take.

Hannibal watches as a single golden drop wells over the edge of the apple and onto Will’s thumb. It creeps toward Will’s knuckle, translucent and glimmering in the late morning sun. Hannibal takes Will’s wrist in a gentle grip, pulling it up and wrapping his lips around the apple, the honeycomb, and the tips of Will’s fingers all at once.

He’s rewarded for his boldness with the soft, gasping hitch of Will’s breath where it catches in his throat. Hannibal barely has the presence of mind to note that the honey is, in fact, delicious, before he’s swallowing the apple down and dipping his face again to chase the honey beading on Will’s skin. He licks all the way to the tender arch where Will’s thumb joins his palm, cataloguing every twitch of muscle under his tongue, each pounding beat of Will’s pulse under his fingertips, the trembling breathlessness of Will’s voice when he gasps Hannibal’s name.

Hannibal sits up and drags his tongue along his lower lip, smiling when Will’s glassy eyes track the motion. Will’s mouth has fallen open just far enough to show a sliver of white teeth beyond the lush, wet red of his lips. Hannibal drops a lingering kiss to Will’s palm and then lets him go, but Will leaves his hand there, hovering in the air between them.

He looks almost hypnotized, chest rising and falling in a shallow rhythm as he breathes, gaze anchored in the vicinity of Hannibal’s mouth.

“Will,” Hannibal says after a moment, and Will starts, jerking his head up to meet Hannibal’s gaze. His eyes are wide and very blue. Hannibal feels his smile sprawl, sharp and predatory. He puts his head to one side, keeps his voice low and soothing as he continues, “This is your picnic. What else would you have me taste?”

Will takes a careful, shuddering breath and closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them again, some of that haze has cleared.

“I know what you’re doing,” he warns, but he’s leaning over to grab a cracker as he says it so Hannibal feels no immediate need to respond.

Will goes for the honey again this time, drizzling it over a soft slice of Brillat Savarin. He isn’t particularly careful in his construction, and Hannibal takes the proffered morsel and then indulges his desire to lick Will’s digits clean. He takes Will’s index finger into his mouth this time, chasing the sweet floral burst of honey across his skin, and then pushes Will’s sleeve up and sucks at the thin skin of his wrist, over the bold beat of his pulse. Will’s breath is shivering in his throat when Hannibal lets him go, eyes driven storm-dark with rising need.

“Another?” he asks in a raw gasp. Hannibal nods and Will tears off a piece of the sweet white bread. He dips it into the jam, heedless of his fingers, and raises the offering to Hannibal’s mouth.

Hannibal takes it, and Will groans—a sharp chip of sound that he swallows down so fast Hannibal is sure he didn’t mean to let it out. Will’s fingertips brush Hannibal’s chin and he presses his thumb, still gummy with jam, into the curve of Hannibal’s lower lip, pulling it down, just a little. Hannibal sucks a breath past his teeth and Will’s gaze flickers up to meet his eye for a half-second, slack mouth curling into a smirk.

“When was the last time somebody sucked you off in public?” he asks, voice a low, ragged rasp. 

Will is lucky that Hannibal finds his tendency toward vulgarity in his sexual advances charming rather than puerile. He leans back on his hands, letting his legs splay a little wider where they’re crossed underneath him, and watches the way heat rises in Will’s cheeks.

“I’m sure I couldn’t say,” Hannibal demurs.

Will hums his acknowledgement and shifts around so they’re facing each other, leaning up onto his knees and resting his hands carefully against Hannibal’s thighs, pushing them wider still. He tucks the plush cushion of his lower lip up under his teeth, letting his gaze slide from Hannibal’s face down his body and back up again, coquettish and coy. It’s at least partially an affectation, Hannibal knows, but he appreciates the performance. It flatters his ego tremendously to see Will trying so hard to give Hannibal what he thinks Hannibal wants, even though all Hannibal wants, at this point, is Will, just as he is. As he has become.

“We should remedy that.”

He doesn’t give Hannibal a chance to respond before he’s clambering into Hannibal’s lap and sealing their mouths together, not that a universe exists in which Hannibal would have denied him. He brings his arms around Will’s back, holding him steady as he rears up like a looming wave, threatening to drag Hannibal down into the depths of the undertow with him.

The kiss is sweet and sticky, made more delectable still for the way Will moans into it. He gets one hand fisted in Hannibal’s shirt and slides the other up through his hair, petting and stroking.

Hannibal unfolds his legs, bringing his knees up and planting his heels against the blanket so he can push into the heat of Will’s body where it hovers above him. Will splays his palm flat against Hannibal’s chest, drops his other hand from Hannibal’s hair to his belt, and starts working the buckle with quick, nimble fingers.

“Lie back,” he instructs, and Hannibal does, even though it puts him halfway in the grass. He posts up on his elbows and watches Will make swift work of his belt and fly. He gets one hand into Hannibal’s trousers, past his shorts, and fishes his half-hard cock out with a triumphant grin. “Give me a second to get going,” he says, eyes flashing gemstone bright and cheeks rouged with desire like a maiden in a Fragonard painting, “and then you can fuck my mouth.”

He bends down to lick at the head of Hannibal’s cock and the banked ember of want Hannibal has been tending since their all too brief interlude in the shower this morning fizzles and catches fire. It doesn’t take long for him to stiffen fully in the warm, wet heat of Will’s mouth, and the scene suddenly starts to skip around them in fits and starts—Will’s mouth on him, his hand in Will’s hair, Will’s jaw working and throat clenching as Hannibal ruts into him a just this side of too hard.

He hears the distant tinkling of glass and thinks absently that they must have kicked something over. He hopes it wasn’t the wine, or more unforgivable still, Will’s pâté. He can’t hold the thought long, with Will’s tongue pressed, slick and hot, under the head of his dick and his throat opening so sweetly when Hannibal pulls him down by his hair.

Will’s eyes are wet at the corners, flashing diamond-bright where the sun catches them. His mouth is red and swollen, and he’s making soft, wounded noises every time Hannibal rolls his hips. His hands are on Hannibal’s thighs, grasping so tight there’ll be a constellation of bruises left in their wake. It’s rougher than Will has wanted it in recent weeks and the wild edge of Hannibal’s orgasm catches against his spine like a match, roaring through him before he even fully sees it crouched in the underbrush, ready to pounce.

He gasps and arches as he spills, hand around the back of Will’s neck to hold him in place, not that he seems particularly inclined to go anywhere. He swallows it all down, breathing harshly through his nose. The tears at the edges of his eyes are cutting tracks down his cheeks, and his jaw is glistening wet when Hannibal finally lets him pull off and raise his head.

He still has his jacket on—they both do, which strikes Hannibal as vaguely absurd—and he takes advantage of that to haul Will up by the collar. Will half-collapses on top of him, chest still heaving like he’s just run a mile, and Hannibal cradles his lovely face with a hand on either cheek.

This, Hannibal considers, is the moment to push.

Will is leaning into Hannibal’s palms, eyes half-lidded and lashes gathered into soft, wet spikes, red mouth still dripping. Hannibal tilts his own face up, noses brushing, and catches Will in a kiss. Will melts into it, a fine tremor quivering out through his whole body. Hannibal can feel the heat of Will’s erection where it’s trapped against his thigh, can feel the shift and bunch of Will’s lean abdomen as he sucks a breath and then sighs it out through his nose, submitting to Hannibal’s affection so beautifully.

“You said the pâté was a gesture,” Hannibal murmurs, pulling back just far enough to speak, “and not an empty one, I think.” Will nods, the barest shallow dip of his chin, and Hannibal kisses Will’s mouth and his nose and each of his darling eyelids in turn, bare brushes of his lips over Will’s fevered skin. “Tell me, then—what is it you desire that you feel you could not simply ask of me?” He strokes his thumbs along the sharp planes of Will’s cheeks, skin catching for a second against the raw pink scar. “Surely you must know by now that you shall never want for anything it is within my power to give.”

Will takes another shuddering breath and his eyes fall closed, brow knitting like he’s in pain. He lets his weight hang in Hannibal’s grip, body slumping like he can’t quite hold himself up. For a moment, he just breathes, slow and steady even while his pulse thunders in the delicate arch of his throat. He licks his lips and opens his eyes again, pupils blown wide and hot. “Le Maquilleur—I have a profile.” 

Hannibal feels his eyebrows quirk, mouth curving sharp with pride. “You can see him.”

“Not yet,” Will admits, tilting his head to one side, then the other, equivocating, “but soon. I’m close.” His eyes are bright burnished sapphires, aglow in that way they only get when he has a knife in hand, the fresh bloom of unworthy blood on his tongue, burning with righteous, lethal fever. Hannibal traces the swollen curve of Will's mouth and Will shudders, closing his eyes again as he breathes, “I can _feel_ him, just out past the edges of my vision. I know where he is.”

Hannibal surges up and over, putting Will on his back and tangling their legs together, taking care not to break the contact between them. Some other jar or dish falls under their twisting heels, but Hannibal can’t summon the energy to care. Not when he has a much more appealing tableau laid out underneath him—Will, halfway to ruin and coming apart with such willing, ruthless elegance.

“And what do you intend to do with this Maquilleur, when we catch him?” Hannibal asks, levering himself forward to murmur the question into the scant inch of warm air over Will’s mouth, noses brushing. Will makes a sharp, pained noise, throat clenching violently, and Hannibal aches out to his fingertips with the desire to wrap his hands around it, to push Will down into the soft earth until it gives underneath them, buries them together in this perfect moment. He kisses Will instead, soft and lingering. “Tell me your design.”

He presses his palm against Will’s belly, slipping his fingers under Will’s sweater, his sweat-damp undershirt, and delights in the quiver of Will’s abdomen under his hand. He undoes the button on Will’s fly with one hand and reaches in to cup Will over his shorts and Will rocks his hips up, thrashing like a pinned animal.

“Tell me, Will,” Hannibal repeats, and squeezes, slow and firm.

Will shudders, reaching up to try and get his hands on Hannibal however he can. His fingers scrabble for purchase on the sleeves of Hannibal’s leather jacket but can't quite hold, and he makes a furious, animal noise behind his teeth, digging his fists into the grass.

He heaves a breath and groans when Hannibal slides his hand up, and then down over the fabric of his boxers, rendered nearly translucent in places with pre-come and sweat. He throws his head back and turns his face toward the sky as he grits, “He - he made a - a spectacle of them. It was - ” he stops, licks his lips, and takes a few shallow breaths. “It was vulgar. It was - _oh.”_

Will’s fervor fails him as Hannibal gets a hand around the bare length of his cock, voice dissolving into a moan. He’s wet enough already that Hannibal doesn’t need to do much. He works Will in his grip for a moment, savoring the sweet musk of sex rising thick on the air, the little wanton sounds that slip free of Will’s gritted teeth as he ruts up into Hannibal’s fist. He pulls his hand free a moment later, grinning at the way Will rends the earth where he clutches it, the furious snarl that barks forth from his lush mouth. He tilts his head up, hazy and wounded by this momentary betrayal, and Hannibal brings his hand up to his mouth and makes a show of licking his palm.

“What was it, Will?” he asks, and returns to his ministrations, basking in the desperate heat of Will’s gaze. “The spectacle he made of them. You found it vulgar. Tell me what else it was.”

“It - it was rude,” Will spits, breathless and anguished and alight with righteous outrage.

“Somebody ought to make a spectacle of him,” Hannibal suggests, and Will nods, clumsy and dazed.

“Yes,” he breathes. “Yes.”

 _“We_ will make a spectacle of him.”

Will whimpers as Hannibal thumbs over the blood-dark head of his cock, rolling his hips up into Hannibal’s grasp, graceless and arrhythmic.

“And after?” Hannibal asks, slowing his strokes even as Will whines in protest.

Will manages to recognize after a few seconds that Hannibal expects some sort of response from him, blinking sluggishly and murmuring, “What?”

“After,” Hannibal explains. “Once we’ve made our spectacle, what do you intend to do? Will you fuck me there in front of him, while your hands are still wet with blood? Unmake me as you have unmade your quarry?”

Will squeezes his eyes shut, brow knotted and jaw clenched, like he’s overcome by the image. Possession and affection unspool in a bright, fizzing current behind Hannibal’s breastbone.

“Yes,” Will says. Every word is a raw, ragged ribbon yanked forcibly out from behind his teeth. “Yes, he - he doesn’t deserve it, doesn't deserve _you,_ but - but he needs to see.”

“What does he need to see?”

“He - ” Will gasps, and Hannibal tightens his grip, works him over a little faster. _“Oh -_ he needs to see something beautiful. So he can understand.” There’s sweat beading on his brow, dampening his curls and dragging them down onto his forehead. He shakes his head and mourns, “He doesn’t understand.”

“We shall show him,” Hannibal soothes. He can tell that Will is on the edge of coming from the way he twitches and jerks, the wine-dark blush that must spill all the way to his navel by now.

“We’ll make him see,” Will babbles. “We’ll make him into something - something beautiful.” His eyes flutter shut and he pants, so soft he might not even realize that he's speaking, "You always make them so beautiful."

The words ring off Hannibal’s mind, low and rich like a reverberating gong, and the intention behind this elaborate picnic slots into place, stark and lovely.

“Do you intend to cook him for me?” Hannibal asks, and doesn’t bother trying to disguise the mystified fondness in his voice. “Make a meal of him?”

Will nods, rendered nonverbal in the shadow of his looming orgasm, and Hannibal’s entire being aches with love for him. He leans over Will, noses brushing, Will’s breath escaping over Hannibal’s chin in swift, wet gasps.

“We’ll go this weekend,” Hannibal murmurs. “Find him and make him something more. The two of us, together.”

“Together,” Will agrees, more moan than speech, and spills over Hannibal’s fingers with a sharp, agonized cry.

Hannibal licks the sound out from behind Will’s teeth, and it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to scream with me about Hannigram (or the million other ships I'm currently sailing), you can find me on Tumblr [@thrillingdetectivetales](https://thrillingdetectivetales.tumblr.com) (where I am currently welcoming Hannibal prompts) or by the same username [over on Dreamwidth.](https://thrillingdetectivetales.dreamwidth.org)
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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